Setting aside my flair for a moment, I cannot recommend this book highly enough:

Vicky Vantoth, The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an Icon.

This is a rollicking, delightful, fun exploration of how the role and public image of airline stewardesses changed from the rise of commercial air travel in the late 1920s to the 1970s-80s, when the position lost its lustre along with the airline industry in general. The most fascinating part to me, which I had not known ANYTHING about, was the international media fascination with American and/versus Soviet stewardesses, and how the two groups were made to embody their countries and even serve as lightweight cultural ambassadors.